Homily 106 – Third Sunday of Great Lent – Veneration of the Cross
Holy Transfiguration Orthodox Church, Ames, Iowa
March 23, 2014
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, One God.
Halfway through the fast, we come to venerate, and to take up, that which offers life to us – the Cross.
We talk a lot about the Cross. In the liturgy, the prayers of the Anaphora talk about the Cross, the tomb, the resurrection on the Third Day. Perhaps an overused statement is that we must “pick up our Cross” and follow Christ.
When we talk about picking up our crosses, we frequently mean bear those infirmities with which we are afflicted. Illness, grief, trial – all are seen as crosses.
Yet none of them are crosses.
None.
An affliction is thrust upon us. It is outside our control, outside of our influence.
A cross, on the other hand, is something we are to choose.
Christ says, in this order, “Deny yourself, pick up your Cross, and follow.”
Deny – the Greek word is ἀπαρνησάσθω (a-par-ni-SAS-tho), and the definition is “deny utterly” or “reject completely”. It is an imperative verb – it is a verb that demands, a verb that is complete. Nothing half-hearted here.
Reject yourself. Reject myself – who I am.
This account is in all three of the synoptic Gospels, and St. Luke is a bit more explicit – he tells us that this rejection happens each and every day of our lives.
Reject our fallen-ness. Reject that which we are, and accept that which we are to become – that which we are to be.
We do this through the Cross.
It is important to recall that the Cross didn’t kill Christ. Christ chose to ascend the cross. If we look at an icon of the crucifixion, we see that Christ isn’t hanging there.
Rather, Christ is supporting – holding up – the Cross.
Christ wasn’t killed. Christ chose to experience death, the way we experience death. But as the hymns say, how can the Creator, the Author of Life, be subject to or under the dominion of, death?
The Cross is voluntary. The choice to pick up our cross leads us to eternal life.
Because that which we reject – our fallen nature – is what we nail to that cross. By killing that fallen nature, what we leave is that nature that God has already redeemed.
That nature which is identical to the one Christ took on at the incarnation.
Deny yourself. Reject the reality of the current self. Take up the cross. Crucify voluntarily that reality of the current self. Follow Him. Become one with the One who gives us life.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, One God.
Bogoslov 